One of Mike Pence’s biggest donors is shifting his support to Nikki Haley’s presidential campaign after the former vice president suspended his 2024 run last week.
“Nikki Haley has great experience in business, politics and foreign relations,” Ron Cameron, an Arkansas poultry magnate and major GOP donor, said in a statement to POLITICO. “She has the backbone to get things done without being offensive.”
The move is the latest among top Republican donors to Haley’s campaign, as the former South Carolina governor and U.N. ambassador rises in the GOP primary.
Investor Keith Rabois, a Florida-based venture capitalist, Texas-based real estate developer Harlan Crow and Fidelis Realty Partners co-founder Lynn Davis, have all recently hosted fundraisers for Haley. And this month, former Goldman Sachs Group Inc. President Gary Cohn is hosting a fundraiser for her in New York.
Haley also privately met with billionaire and GOP megadonor Miriam Adelson last weekend on the sidelines of the Republican Jewish Coalition’s annual meeting in Las Vegas. Adelson, who is expected to stay neutral in the GOP primary, had a separate private dinner meeting with the frontrunner, former President Donald Trump.
The surge in donor interest comes with Haley on an upswing in the primary. Through still running far behind Trump, she has tied or surpassed Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis for second place in recent polls. Cameron, who has donated millions to Republican candidates and causes, is expected to donate to Haley’s super PAC, SFA Fund, Inc.
A spokesperson for Haley’s campaign declined to comment.
In the 2020 election, Cameron, the CEO of Mountaire Farms based in Little Rock, Ark., was a top donor and ally to Trump and served on the White House’s Covid-19 advisory board on economic revitalization. But since then, he has donated to Trump rivals, including Pence and Americans for Prosperity Action, the political network backed by Charles and David Koch that is pushing the party to find an alternative to Trump. In 2023, Cameron donated over $8 million to Republicans, according to FEC data.
Haley is now picking up more interest from that Trump-skeptical corner of the GOP. She raised over $11 million between July and September.
